Re: 5.25 drive issue w/ IIgs & sys 6.01

["Mark Cummings" <NOTfigjams@primus.com.au>]

Jeff & William,

> >Appleworks GS doesn't support transfers faster than 19200.
> >I currently use Z-Link which supports up to 56K transfers but
> >it won't work with 56K with the PC.  Do you have the machine
> >in Fast mode?  If it is in Normal mode, it will be too slow to
> >allow transfers faster than 9600 bps.  Check your control
> >panel.  [ctrl][open apple][esc].

I always use fast mode, except for a few games that need 1MHz.

> Sound to me like both of you guys are using non-hardware handshaking
> cables to connect your IIgs' to other machines.  If you don't use
> hardware handshaking cables, then you will definitely get errors at
> higher transfer rates.  Even more errors if you are transferring files
> to a slow drive such as a floppy.

I am using hardware handshaking, the cable has more than 3 wires. I would
only use XON/XOFF if it only had 3 wires. Can you elaborate n which
handshake settings I should use, normally I use DCD & DTR handshake. I can't
check this at the moment, because my Focus 500M HDD finally croaked it, and
I am reloading all my stuff onto a SCSI drive.

> Without hardware handshaking, the only way to get the other computer
> to stop sending is to use software handshaking.  This is the XON/XOFF
> that William mentioned.  This type of handshaking isn't as reliable as
> hardware handshaking as the other computer won't stop sending until it
> has received an XOFF character from the IIgs so you might have a
> buffer overflow before the XOFF character gets there.  This is more
> apparent at higher transfer rates.

I was aware of that.

> A properly wired hardware handshaking cable is also dependent on the
> communications program that you are using.  Fortunately, the most
> popular communications programs all started using the same cable
> pinout so if you are using ProTERM, Spectrum, ANSITerm or one of a
> couple other programs, they will all be able to use the same hardware
> handshaking cable.

Where do I find the correct cabling info., everyone taks about hardware
hanshaking, so I buy the right cable, but it still doesn't work >9600. If I
had the pinouts, I can check it or make my own. I can see that AppleWorks GS
is a huge bottleneck, so I will have to try something else there. Maybe I
already have the right PC-GS cable.

> at 38400 bps you'll be doing fine as chances are, you'll never be able
> to exceed that speed.

If I get 38400, I'd be more than satisfied.

> One final thing to note, you will also get faster transfers if you use
> a transfer protocol that uses 1024 byte packets (or larger if you can
> manage it) instead of XModem's 128 bytes packets as there is less
> overhead.

Thanks for the tip, but I've got to get over the first hurdle.

> However, as Mark mentioned, things are quite a bit faster if you use
> AppleTalk.  If you are wanting to transfer stuff from a PC and don't
> have the hardware and/or software to do AppleTalk, then you could use
> a LANceGS card in a IIgs to connect to the PC and do FTP transfers
> over a TCP/IP network.  :)

For the price of a LanceGS card it would be cheaper to put an old Mac on the
net, including the cost of the Mac. So this is the path I am taking. One
28.8K modem on its way in about a week. :)
I realise this won't solve the problem between the PC and GS, but I can work
on your suggestions.

Mark